When it comes to transportation, most agree that things work best when every mode gets their own exclusive right of way. Mixing cars, buses, bikes, pedestrians, and trains results in poor or dangerous experiences for all. The speeds of the various modes aren’t the same, which generate conflict, and the patterns of travel are different as well.

As such, many bicycle advocates look with envy at cities or countries that have invested great deals of money in keeping the transportation modes apart. Being able to bicycle to work, or the store, or to dinner, completely separate from cars, on a direct trail? Yes please. It’s safer. It’s more pleasant. It’s FUN. Even substandard improvements, like 8-foot trails that spill out onto sharrows are major victories in places like New York. A protected intersection? Groundbreaking.Click to read more!

Bike share finally came to Portland, Oregon this week, and the system has already proven to be popular. At this point, bike share in the US is no longer a novelty, as successful systems are integrated into the day-to-day life of dozens of major cities.

However, not all bike share is created the same, and Portland’s new system has the distinction of being the largest “smart-bike” system in the country. This is in contrast to most large systems which rely on “smart docks” instead.

The primary difference is the location of the electronics. In a smart
dock system, everything is handled by the dock and an attached kiosk. On
a smart bike system, the bicycle itself carries all the technology.
That means you can lock your bicycle to anything. You use a pin code to remove the built in lock and when you’re done, you reattach the lock to the bicycle (and another fixed object of course). Built in GPS ensures the company knows where the bike is.Click to read more!

Fresno State, officially California State University, Fresno, has for decades been a driving university. The campus arrived at its current location in 1956, and at the time it was located far from the city. That was intentional – with agriculture as a core mission, the University purposely surrounded itself with farms. Even today, the 388-acre main campus is attached to the 1,011-acre University Farm. As such, one was expected to drive to campus. Especially because students came from all over the Central Valley.

Fresno State in the 1950’s

However, much has changed since 1956. Fresno grew, and now the campus is completely surrounded by urban (or suburban) activity. The University has also grown tremendously, and now hosts a population of over 25,000 (students and staff). While commuter students still represent a large portion of the population, 8,000 students and 2,400 staff live within 5 miles of campus – an easy bicycle commute over perfectly flat land. Click to read more!

It’s that time of the year again, when you leave work at your usual time and suddenly get hit with a blast of 10pm darkness. Although the thermometer says “perfect biking and walking weather,” our corporate overlords demand we work our regular hours, which happen to extend past sunset. As such, the evening commute becomes a nighttime affair.

Cue the “be visible” safety campaigns kicking into high gear. The Boston Globe has an article on being visible at night:

In self-defense, “push yourself into the driver’s awareness as much
as you can” by exploiting biological motion, said Jonathan Dobres, a
research scientist at MIT’s AgeLab. “Make yourself as big and bright and
reflective as you can. You’re really helping the brain of a driver
figure out, ‘Oh, that’s not a road sign, that’s a person moving
around.’ ”Boston Globe Click to read more!

Here’s an interesting one. Veteran’s Boulevard is a long-planned 6 lane highway to cut diagonally across the west side of Fresno. It is currently scheduled to begin construction in 2020, but it looks like a small trail section, which will parallel the highway, will open sooner.Click to read more!

This is a couple of weeks old, but I’ve fallen behind in posting again (work, and then sick). Fear not, there are plenty of posts in the draft box.

The US Department of Transportation has announced that they will sprinkle money around the country to help count bicycles and pedestrians. This is important because transportation funding is always data oriented, and without data, there’s no possibility for funds.

That is, if we want more funding for people walking and biking, we need to know how many people do it! You may have heard stats like “less than 1% of people bike” for example, but these statistics are purely related to journey to work. As the press release points out:Click to read more!

If you’ve been past Fresno State on Shaw any time this year, you’ve seen construction underway at Campus Pointe. It’s yet another shopping center for Fresno, in a part of town that isn’t exactly lacking in retail options. The project is a joint development between Fresno State, and the people who brought us River Park.

The “selling point” is that it is directly next to Fresno State, so it’s being advertised as a place for students to visit, and somewhere they can do so walking or biking. Sadly, the fundamentals are missing which make it a real walking or biking destination, and parking is a huge center-piece, as expected. As is the case in every Fresno development, the main street (Chestnut in this case) is fronted by parking. Click to read more!

Another year, another major expansion for Mexico City’s 4-year old Ecobici bike share system.

The latest expansion will see an investment of 150 million pesos – or 11 million USD – to expand into 14 new square kilometers (5.5sq.mi) using 171 new stations, and 2,600 new bikes. Of those new stations, 12 will be added in areas that currently have service, to meet high demand.

To put that number in perspective, the system currently has 275 stations. With the expansion, the system will become the largest in the Americas, beating out New York’s Citibike which has 330 stations. The system would still be smaller than the ones in Paris and London, as well as various enormous systems in China. Click to read more!

When it comes to the world of bike-share, New York’s Citibike may continue to get the headlines, but it’s actually Mexico City’s Ecobici that has the most users in the Americas. Last week, they proudly released stats about ridership, and the numbers are impressive, especially for a city that isn’t exactly known for cycling (or safe streets).

According to El Universal, Ecobici has reached 95,780 annual members. Of those, 40,500 have been added since December. That compares with NYC being just shy of 80,000, since launching in May. When the Ecobici program completed their 3rd expansion last year, the goal was 75,000 users.Looks like it’s time for more stations. Click to read more!